Monsoonal reversal of remote sensing biases in latent heat flux over the eastern Arabian Sea

[1] The Arabian Sea is a unique basin where a number of atmospheric and oceanographic processes occur due to the contrasting climatic conditions, which it experiences. The drastic monsoonal variability occurring in the boundary layer adversely affects the quality of remote sensing data and derived products. Comparisons of satellite-based estimate of Latent Heat Flux (LHF) with in situ values demonstrate the nature and extent of such variabilities. Mean satellite fluxes underestimate in situ values during summer (July to September) and overestimate them during fall (October to November). The underestimation peaked for high LHF values and disappeared for low LHF during summer. During fall, maximum over-estimation occurred when the LHF values were relatively low and it disappeared for higher LHF. These observations closely followed the behavior of satellite biases of sea surface temperature (SST) and wind speed (WS) during the two contrasting periods. Biases of SST and WS indicated opposite trends on either side of a threshold of 28.5°C and 5 m/s, respectively.